


A Simple Mouthful of Praise

by BananaStrings



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Humanity, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Recovery, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananaStrings/pseuds/BananaStrings
Summary: The story of how Mark got out of his bomb vest.
Relationships: John Reese/Mark Snow
Kudos: 1





	A Simple Mouthful of Praise

_“Should I even bother asking what he meant by 'she’s planning something big'?” Carter asked across the line._

_“I was hoping you knew,” Reese admitted._

_“For what it’s worth, it didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a warning,” she cautioned, her concern mingling with curiosity._

_“I’ll see what I can come up with,” John bade, as he closed the call._

_“Could it be connected to Miss Corwin’s death?” Finch offered as soon as Reese pocketed the phone. “That was where Detective Carter last crossed paths with Agent Snow.”_

_Reese shook his head in confusion. “I don’t know. And it sounded like he thought it would be something I would know.”_

_“Well, we’ll simply find the commonalities between the two of you and—Mr. Reese, are you alright?”_

_John could feel the hot flush across his cheekbones, a mingle of doubt and fear. Mark and he had one very clear commonality between them and it was indeed a ‘she.’ John tried to take a deep breath, but it was labored enough to be audible in the library’s research room._

_“Mr. Reese,” Harold tried again, more gentle sensing distress._

_John blinked his gaze to him, trying to raise his brows in a disarming expression. He was certain he failed._

_“Kara Stanton. We were partnered together and Mark was our handler. I…suppose it’s possible that she escaped the last mission alive. And that Mark assumes I’m aware of that.”_

_He watched Harold go pale, his eyes wide and his mouth working a little without sound. The thorough background check he did on John must have given him a little bit of information about her—and her abuses of fellow agents. His response, however, seemed to be more toward what John was giving away in his demeanor than in any classified file he'd broken into. Which was very, very bad and meant he should damn well not go after this._

_“I owe him,” John found himself saying even so._

Harold watched John pace the length of the entranceway, which connected their research bay with the main floor of the abandoned library and its shelves after shelves of books. It was dawn now and they were both worn down after an evening ending in last-second bomb disposal and termination of a former 'associate.' Bear had shared his dog bed with John for a few hours that night, which had been too amusing for words, but seemed to have only served to give Mr. Reese a stiff back.

He didn't think he'd ever seen John this ruffled. Finch had tried to reassure him that logically Agent Snow would not emerge from the basement where they had deposited him with a couple of protein bars and a mug of water. Basic survival instinct would have Mark staying put for at least as long as it took him to learn the tactics that John was using to survive being burned. John had only frowned at him.

It had taken a whole night of watching John pace and dart his eyes from one spot to another to realize that Mr. Reese had not been guarding the stairs down to the basement. He had been guarding the building's entrances. He was not concerned with Mark posing a threat to them. He was concerned about threats posed to Mark. Then it had been Harold's turn to frown.

Finch picked up the stack of folded clothes he’d procured after recognizing that, due to the bomb vest, Agent Snow had been wearing the same clothing for months. He rose wordlessly and headed back down to the basement. John may not have been able to verbalize the need to check on Mark, but Harold could take a hint.

Harold walked down into the atrium under the rotunda with the dark stained glass shielding an early morning sky. Descending lower, he sensed more than heard John following him, quietly enough that Harold could pick out the sound of feet pounding the carpeted floor between the stacks, as he got to the bottom of the stairs.

The pace slowed and stopped and Mark appeared in front of them sweaty and breathing hard through his nose. The limp Carter had described to them seemed to have vanished, and it wasn’t hard to guess that Snow had hidden the extent of his healing to maintain the illusion of disability to his captor. The revealing of his strength to John and him now was just as deliberate.

Harold knew what John expected of him: enfold Mark into the team as he had enfolded John. Harold just had no idea how. This man gave away nothing but what he wanted to. He could see the rub marks from the recently removed bomb vest in the vee of Mark’s undershirt. They were red and raw and painful looking. It reminded him that this man had been held underground for three months. The only thing that had kept him sane, Finch assumed, had been that familiar routine of mission and disappearance.

Harold estimated that he’d been running sprints back and forth for quite a while in a strange parallel to Mr. Reese’s pacing upstairs. Maybe John had heard Mark, mirrored him to keep track of him. John gave a quiet relieved breath behind Finch's shoulder that Harold understood well enough. Before them was a man readying himself for a mission. Mark, in whatever shape he was in, was still holding on.

_“Might I remind you that your commitment is to the numbers we receive,” Harold said into John's ear piece, “and we have received two at once."_

_“Well, then it’s fortunate that you have two assets to deploy,” John bit back softly._

_He realized he was asking Harold to stretch his resources thin, pointing Fusco and Carter in two different directions, but he was feeling spread pretty thin right now as well._

_“Besides, I have a feeling he’s more relevant than you think,” John added._

_He wasn’t going to tell Harold how he knew that. If he admitted to tailing the FBI agent who had been tracking him, he would be admitting to putting himself in extreme danger while simultaneously asking Harold to withdraw his back-up. Not Harold’s favorite strategy. Ears on Donnelley had told John that Mark was now suspected of being an associate of John's, so far a less than helpful tip. If he couldn’t get off this merry-go-round in the next 24 hours and onto a real lead, he would have to return to regular duty._

Mark ate slowly, deliberately, politely at the library study table. He was making sure Harold saw him appreciating every bite he was receiving. It was a good game, and John watched with some enjoyment. He’d only seen Mark work a mission on the ground twice. Both times had been emergency interceptions and neither time was as leisurely as this one. Snow was creating a sense of being cared for by Finch meant to inspire continued investment in his well being. His read of Harold had been almost instant when he met him, and the plays he made continued to be good ones.

When he was finished cleaning his plate of every last scrap of omelet Harold had purchased uptown, he set down his fork and looked up. Beneath those thick brows, his eyes were dark, shadowed but bright, indicating he’d slept at least a couple of hours. It was a miracle really and the reason John wasn’t worried about Mark’s plays. Harold’s were proving to be just as good. Mark ran a hand over his fine, black hair and began.

“Something big,” Snow prompted himself, before Harold could even open his mouth. “Yes, that was the incentive I gave John to target her. Truth was, she was disorganized. Pulling strings which didn’t seem attached to what she wanted to find. She had me. She was looking for John, which is the only reason he found her. She was planning to use John for something. The endgame, I can only assume, was finding whoever was ultimately responsible for whatever got her burned.”

“And, that would be me,” Harold responded.

Mark looked startled, but it dropped away. That fox smile he was so practiced at replaced it. White and straight and hard, he hid everything behind his teeth out of reach, not least of which was pleasure. That was the one thing he guarded the most closely. Which was why John assumed he was hiding it now.

“You have some idea of what’s going on, don’t you?” John pressed.

“There are two different types of knowledge: knowledge that helps and knowledge that hurts. As soon as I figured it out, I let it go.”

“And, now it’s become knowledge that helps,” Harold put in.

Mark’s lips kept their upward curve, but John didn’t assume him convinced.

_The break didn’t come till John was headed back to his loft in defeat. That was when Harold called to inform him that Stanton was following him. And, he finally had his advantage. He led her back the way he came, the closest he could guess to where she had stashed Mark. It only took three hours for her to move him again in response. This, however, he knew was the trap._

_He couldn’t move in, until he knew she was occupied elsewhere. As long as he followed her movements, she was getting the advantage of leading his movements. A near stalemate unless she could be baited. Which is where Agent Donnelly came in. That was a man who could certainly be baited._

_By the time Donnelley’s movements caught Kara’s attention, John knew he had little time till she had sussed out the lead as false. He ran full tilt into the tunnels. Banging on every door he found, till Mark finally banged back. He hauled Mark out by the arm, across the parking lot to the river alongside, but when he reached for the vest, Mark shook his head._

_“It can’t be disarmed until the triggerperson disengages the trigger.”_

_John’s eyes raced over his face. There was no lie there. This was no trap set for him. Mark’s lips set relaxed into their natural little curve. His high forehead untensed. His eyes attentive, waiting for something. Predatory. John took a couple of steps back. Might not be a trap for him, but…_

_“If you can’t be rescued, why risk sending a message to me?”_

_“I was willing to do anything to kill her.”_

_Stanton had only gotten at John once. After that, Mark had denied her every request for "downtime." John didn't care if Mark had done it to protect John or the job John was doing. He had been a good handler. He had never let any detail slip, and the mission had always come first. Even as burned as John now, Mark knew what he had to do. Reese finally called Finch for help, knowing what he had to do now too._

Harold knew he’d been waiting for Mark to try to kill John all week. Finch hadn’t been hiding it well, he also knew. He'd caught his own reflection on the monitors once in a while, his eyes a fraction too wide behind his thick lenses.

John showed no similar concerns, and in fact seemed amused by Harold’s. Mr. Reese had tried to explain it to him, told him about Mark’s aptitude with emerging threats and evolving scenarios. The speech had felt more like hero worship than professional opinion. Needless to say it hadn’t calmed Finch's nerves.

Mark had been civil enough, made no sudden moves, shared breakfast with him and then allowed himself to be moved back into the basement without complaint. Harold would bring him lunch, find him sitting in meditation in the darkness. John would join them for dinner when he could, consulting with Mark about his current number as though he was part of the team already.

Harold wondered if this was a little glimpse into John’s past, the dark time he only spoke of indirectly. Reporting to Mark for many years of black ops, instead of to Harold these past couple years of whatever this was. He and John called it 'helping people,' but the language John used with Mark over meals was not so sentimental.

However, it wasn’t the words themselves that were of concern to Finch primarily. It was the tone. Mr. Snow had a voice like a hum. It reminded Harold of a hummingbird’s wings. Beating so fast as to be unseen. That was the trick with spotting hummingbirds. They were so small, so fast, and so quiet that it was more a feeling traveling through the air that caused the watcher to turn his head. A vibration. A subtlety.

And, Harold for all his watching had not quite spotted Mr. Snow yet.

_John was the only recruit to come to the gym an hour early. Of course, Mark had already been working out an hour before he arrived, but then Mark did expect to be back in the field full-time once this round of assets was vetted. He wasn’t a hand-to-hand instructor. While John would be in the gym being tossed around, Mark would be in an adjacent building teaching field communications. They wouldn’t cross paths again until the evening class rotation._

_For now, they were convenient sparring partners. Mark kept to his cardio routine, while John warmed up. They’d been at it for two weeks. One more week and these men and women would be gone one way or another. Either as their new identities replaced the old, or as they were ‘utilized’ for the greater good._

_Snow had no doubt that Reese would be the former. He was that rare student who could see the bigger picture, not just what was taught but the purpose of it. He was no drone, nor puppet, which is what made him such fun to spar with._

_John seemed to appreciate the challenge Mark offered as well. He would show he was ready to begin by grinning for a moment, a flash of animal eagerness. They started by circling one another on the thin, gray mat. Though neither would admit it out loud, the purpose here was more to play than to train. Staying loose in a fight could be your greatest strength, however, so it certainly wasn’t an idle pursuit that had them lunging for each other’s ankles to pick one and roll their opponent onto his back._

_John smiled, as they grappled for top position, even when Mark landed half-force jabs to his ribs. His eyes were almost merry, as he ‘oofed’ and grabbed Mark’s wrists. He spun Snow deftly off of him, but Mark rolled through and remounted easily. Reese had the slight height and weight advantage that Mark made up for in a natural strength advantage._

_John smiled again, before tangling their legs and bucking hard, to shift the mount high enough to slip out. Mark wasn’t quick enough to his feet to avoid a thrust kick to the back of his hamstring. He had to dodge with a roll and rise into John’s palm strike to his jaw. But, Mark caught that arm and the other that followed it._

_"Don’t even think about headbutting me," Mark warned. "Ow."_

_Snow caught himself smiling a little at the stomp to his toes. He dropped John’s arms to reset. They worked in fifteen minute bouts, sitting in between to hydrate and compare notes. It was during a break that the other trainees began to wander in._

_John had been sitting beside him as flushed as someone with his cool Irish coloring could be—steel blue eyes and black hair and thick, stoic features. He managed to dim his endorphin glow by sheer force of will, till he looked like he’d be cold to the touch._

_Mark recognized how much trust he was being given on these mornings to be shown even that little bit of natural warmth that John possessed. And, he appreciated it. He felt a kinship with the man even after two weeks._

_They could be brothers, with Mark’s own Irish heritage warmed just a touch by Mediterranean ancestry—giving his brown eyes a gold tinge and his jutting chin and strong jaw more pride than stoicism. It allowed him to dip down on his way out, lean his arm on John’s broad shoulder where the other man sat waiting for class to begin._

_“You always make me work for it,” Mark said in parting, a simple mouthful of praise._

_But, John looked up at him with this terrible openness, and Mark knew he could never do that again. So, he didn’t look back as he walked away. Didn’t speak to John again outside of basic necessity. But, it was too late._

_The bond was made in that one moment of affection, of acknowledgement that John was human to him. Mark could feel it in the way John’s eyes followed him from then on. Snow had done this, and he would take responsibility for it. So, he didn’t hesitate to request Agent Reese when Agent Snow was called to be a handler. John was the best. It was the best choice._

“How did you get John?” Snow asked.

He had turned to face Harold, turned away from the wall he had been drawing on with a set Sharpies he must have found in storage, lit by the camping lantern they’d provided him. It was the first time Harold had brought him down his lunch and not found him sitting quietly and breathing deeply. The mural in progress appeared to be some farm fields. Overarching sky formed a nearly protective dome above the ground.

“I pressed upon a weakness I found,” Harold answered honestly.

It was like he was drawing himself a doorway out of here, a glimpse into where he would rather be. It was also painfully familiar. Perhaps a place neither man could ever return except in daydreams like this one. Harold wanted to touch it, run his hands over it, feel where it was smooth and rough, and let the ink stain his palms. He wanted to be a part of it. Mark watched him as he looked at the drawing. He could feel his gaze, but it wasn’t intrusive.

“You drew this for me,” Harold comprehended, “to give me a weakness to push on.”

“You seemed to be having trouble finding one on your own.”

Harold angled his body enough to flash a tight smile to Mark, who didn’t smile back, but held his gaze. Snow wanted out. Finch turned back to the drawing to think. John was here this afternoon. John was always careful not to enter the basement, not after that first morning. Harold wasn’t certain what his motivations were. Maybe some silent protest of being a captor. Maybe it just hurt to see Mark down in the darkness, so low.

John held this man in obviously high regard, yet Mark didn’t press that advantage, not once since arriving. And, Harold had to examine his own motive for keeping Mark underground—a desire to keep the two men separate, born of the simple fear of losing control. Mark had seen it and tried to give Harold something to hold over his head, to keep him down. Finch was abashed at his own cruelty.

“Mr. Reese,” Finch called.

As anticipated, John had moved to the head of the stair during Harold’s delay below. John stepped down into the shadowed doorway, hesitating. His gaze traveled curiously over the newly appointed wall across the room.

No no no, Harold had had it all wrong he realized at that moment. It wasn’t protest or hurt that had kept John above ground. It was respect. Mark had not invited him.

Harold’s heart ached.

“Hey, John, I just got paroled,” Mark called out.

John stepped down into the room at once like Mark’s voice was a summons. His eyes were bright with pleasure that even the stark, bluish LED light couldn’t obscure. Harold felt the ache ease and wondered how he’d ever believed himself to be in control to begin with.

“Agent Donnelley is getting excited,” Carter warned drolly. “He thinks Mark Snow is working with you.”

“He is,” John affirmed gazing out over the bay.

He could sense Carter’s brows rise up. He could sense when they dropped down again as well.

“There was a truth in the lie,” she assessed.

“You wouldn’t have believed him if there wasn’t.”

“Your best friend,” she recited, “that’s what he called himself. I did believe him until he tried to kill you.”

“Best friend is not the same as top priority.”

“No, it’s not. He also said he wanted you alive, however.”

“He probably did.”

“You can’t always get what you want.”

John huffed a breath of amusement. It fogged in the cool damp air.

“Well, you know Fusco and I helped that married couple, who took out a hit on one another, patch things up.” She shook her head in bemusement.

“Are you offering mediation services?” he joked.

“Do you need mediation services?” she shot back.

John paused to scan over the night-black water. Port lights blinked along the far edge, white and red. It was peaceful. He always preferred to work during the day. Nights he wanted for himself just to rest his mind for awhile, even if sleep wouldn’t come. Here by the cold water with no cameras mounted nearby, only satellite lenses monitoring them so far up in the sky as to be flirty winks of light, he dropped his guard for awhile. He let himself feel the darkness as a comfort.

“Of course, the only service I have to offer is zip tying you to a chair for a candlelight dinner, and I’m not sure that’s really appropriate in this instance.”

John felt his stomach bounce with humor.

“Was that a laugh, a real honest to goodness laugh?”

Carter swung to get a good look at him, her wide dark eyes scrunched with suspicion. Her joke hadn’t been that funny. Which made it pretty clear that he was simply feeling happy.

“And from the belly too,” she added drily, turning away again with a little upswing to one side of her mouth.

As she walked away, John let his hand drift down his stomach to place it over his scar. It wasn’t even a very big one. The surgeon, Harold had procured for him, had been careful of that, masterfully pulling out the bullet that Mark’s new agent at the time had fired there. Hardly more than a little white line crooked like a tree limb. That was the beauty of physical pain, it ended.

And with Mark that night that was all it had been. Nothing personal, a shot center mass from an earnest agent who had been doing his best to kill him. Nothing like the rough starburst that lay on his left side, the shot Kara had taken to make him a victim, her victim, to make him look up at her and see it was she who had all the power. Mark had never asked him for anything that he hadn’t already taken on as a duty.

There was a difference between the two, and it was written on his skin.


End file.
